21 November 2011 (Theatre Review)

Star Rating: 3.5/5

Title: The Country Girls
Cast: Caoimhe O'Malley, Holly Browne, Peter Hanly, Charlie Bonner, Simon Boyle, Rachel Dowling, Georgina Miller, Aileen Mythen, Michael Power
Director: Mikel Murfi
Writer: Edna O Brien, adapted from her own novel.

Considering that Edna O Brien's source novel featured scenes of premarital and extramarital sex, is it any wonder that The Country Girls was banned in 1960s Ireland. It's scenes of promiscuity and domestic abuse still pinch. But the grimness of the period is suppressed in favour of a highly stylised, vaudevillian waltz down memory lane, where the romantic ideals of Holly Browne's Kate Brady are observed through cracked rose tint glasses.

It's superbly crafted and the ache of want is poignantly captured by the young leads (Caoimhe O Malley, as Baba, is metallic foil to Kate's poetic soul). But the aesthetic sanitises O'Brien's indictment of the vicious and brutal rip tide of Catholic sanctimony.

It works, ultimately, as an evenings entertainment (packing an emotional punch thanks to an on-form cast) but the rapid pace, stock characterisation and the over eagerness to show time has passed rather than just accepting the period and moving on, means it takes a while for story and style to gel and undermines the urgency of the tale.

Haunting, choral renditions of Irish ballads frame each development in the girl's lives. Delivered by the supporting cast - looming, leering, always disapproving - and Trevor Knight's soundscapes, best accentuate the repressive threat that seeped from this country's pores. But the cartoon violence of the nuns, the hasty handling of the girls' early years and the deliberate milking of hindsight leaves the first half wanting for drama.

Murfi brings it all together when the action moves to Dublin, helped by the fact that there is less need for the actors to double up, so the words become the focus rather than the manor in which they are mounted. The ying and yang of Kate and Baba's separate mentalities lays bare the cost of naivety in a country whose moral backbone was rotten at its core.

The production's greatest accomplishment is that it reminds us of O Brien's intrepidness as a writer. Her articulacy and her empathy are well rendered in performance while the zippy direction insures that its transition from page to stage never feels bookish.
 

Review by: Caomhan Keane

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